No fraud, fund diversion at Reliance Home Finance: Forensic auditor

Reliance Housing Finance Ltd's (RHFL's) forensic auditor Grant Thornton has not recorded any adverse findings on 11 parameters, including any diversion or siphoning of funds, embezzlement, falsification of accounts and fraudulent transactions by promoter, company, employees or any associates.

As part of the debt resolution process, the company's lenders had appointed Grant Thornton for the audit in August 2019 as required by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.

"The forensic report has confirmed the potential group entities exposure through several intermediate unlisted entities at Rs 7,984 crore (including interest). The company had voluntarily and publicly disclosed even before the commencement of forensic audit to its auditors, regulators, lenders and also in the latest annual financial statements which were duly approved by the shareholders," RHFL said in a statement.

The National Housing Bank (NHB), to whom all the facts have been provided before the commencement of the forensic audit, has already taken due note of the same, said RHFL late on Sunday.

The NHB has taken actions like the imposition of penalty and directions regarding the alleged regulatory anomalies, including concentration of credit, related party transactions. NHB also directed it to increase the housing loan disbursements and reduce corporate exposure.

"Based on completion of the forensic audit, the company has now requested its bankers to proceed on a fast-track basis with the debt resolution plan under change of management and control in the overall interests of all lenders, including over 20,000 retail non-convertible debenture holders and over eight lakh shareholders," said RHFL.

( With inputs from ANI )